novel_The End of the Line: How Overfishing is Changing the World and What We Eat
Friday, June 22nd, 2007Caution: Reading this novel upset your stomach!!!
"Imagine …a band of hunters strung a mile of net between two immense all-terrain vehicles and dragged it at speed across the plain of Africa. This fantastical assemblage…would scoop up everything in its way: ..lions…cheetahs…rhinos..elephants…impala…wildebeest…warthog…wild dog. Pregnant females would be swept away and carried along, with only the smallest juveniles able to wriggle through the mesh.
Picture how the net is constructed, with a huge metal roller attached to the leading edge. This rolling beam smashes and flatens obstructions, flushing creatures into the approaching filaments…breaks off every outcrop, uproot every tree, bush and flowering plants, stirring columns of birds into the air…
This efficient but highly unselective way of killing animals is known as TRAWLING" - Charles Clover, The End of the Line (2005).
With this very powerful introduction, one is left wondering how this things happens on Earth, TODAY. And yet, most of the food we eat are from trawls, from the finger-licking goodness of fish chips, to sushi, including CHICKEN, PORK, BEEF (yup you read it right, CHICKEN, PORK, BEEF (Chicken and pigs are feed with animal protein, which are from fish. Cows eat grass fertilized with fish, as some component of fertilizers that is used to grow the grass may come or contain nutrients from fish!) There is no escaping (me too!!!)
Well, the book describes how overfished most of our oceans are, which lead to changes on what kind of fish are served in our plate. That fishing is causing the RAPID decline of our fishery resources is obvious. Well, the author argue that as consumers, we have the power to change this one, simply by choosing "sustainably obtained" fish in our menu.
Fish to AVOID (ask the waiter/waitress/shop owner the name of the fish and origin, when you are ordering)
1. Atlantic cod
2. Atlantic haddock
3. Bluefin tuna (yes, from now on, no more sushi and tuna salads)
4. Caviar (or the egg of wild-caught sturgeon)
5. European hake
6. European bass
7. North Atlantic halibut
8. Patagonian toothfish (Chilean sea bass)
9. Grouper
10. Snapper
11. Orange roughy
12. Scallops
If you need more help, click on these sites
Monterey Bay Aquarium Healthy Seafood Choice
FISHBASE (for identification of fish)
Charles Clover
The End of the Line: How Overfishing is Changing the World and What we Eat
Ebury Press, London. 2005
314 pages
